But then there were the small booths. Tiny distributors, particularly from Asia, would set up shop in droves, looking for customers. They'd be selling all sorts of things. One was selling computer mice in the shape of pandas, frogs, and ladybugs. Another booth sold tiny LED displays which "Another booth sold tiny LED displays which could be placed inside small magnets or hats and display the company's logo."
I also noticed a difference just by the country the booth was from. Booths from Asia tended to be completely full of stuff. Walls were covered in keyboards and loud posters. Their display cases trimmed in flashing Christmas lights. Meanwhile, the North American booths were stark, businesslike but lacking any kind of personality except for the person running the booth.
There's an interesting dynamic here. Small tiny companies, medium-sized companies, and huge companies. The tiny companies want to become medium-sized companies, medium-sized companies want to become larger ones, and the big ones... well I guess they want to get bigger. Bigger than the company bigger than itself. But just walking around I wondered, which one of these is the next break-out company. In just five or ten years, one of these little booths could just take off.
I was also fascinated by the scope of each company. Some companies, such as Samsung, made products in many areas, such as communications and Business/IT, while others focused on just a few areas. Or just one. For instance, the company just next to our office made nothing but scanning equipment designed to scan books without damaging them. Or the one company I saw that made nothing power supplies, demonstrating the ability by hooking up an obscene number of hard drives to one mammoth motherboard.
It wasn't until I was hanging out at the mobile booth that I realized what this is all about. Connecting people and their businesses. A woman stopped me and asked if I wouldn't mind taking a survey. I felt strange because I was working for Samsung, and it was hard to explain what I did, so I did the best I could. She asked me things like my primary reasons for attending CeBIT, my goals, and if I felt I achieved those goals.
I put myself in the shoes of a businessman. Here were many many companies, and I could find nearly any product I wanted for my business, anything I wanted to sell, and any service I needed. And there was enough staff to explain all these choice to me (plus lots of coffee bars, to help explain them to me). So a big fair like this is primarily about showing to the public, and to other businesses, what exactly they offer. What's out there. I learned about so many new products I didn't even think existed (like this book scanner).
In the end I felt CeBIT is a very strong fair. I heard some big names didn't show up, but given the hundreds of smaller companies in the fair, I don't really understand why this is a problem. The important thing is to get lots of people talking to each other about technology, and CeBIT 2007 did that.
